6 months already!

It has been 6 months since Claire joined the world, wow!    She is suuuuuuper cute:)

Here are the stats from her last doctor visit.  We're happy to report that she is still totally healthy.

Length: 26 1/2", 75%
Weight: 17 lbs, 14 ozs., 75-90%
Head Circumference: 17 1/2", 90-95%

Spumoni turns 8

Happy Birthday to our first baby who turned 8 years young today.  Luke wanted to bake Spumoni a birthday cake, so we did.  He enjoyed his piece of cake immensely.  He is such a good boy, and such a wonderful part of our family.  XOXO dear Spumoni Monster

 Look how little he used to be:)

Book of Mormon

Another weekend of summertime fun has come and gone!  On Saturday Matt and I had a long-awaited date night.  For my birthday Matt had given me tickets to Book of Mormon, and the date of the show finally arrived.  I can't tell you if I enjoyed the show (which was awesome!) or the gourmet dinner before more.  We went to dinner at a restaurant called Henri, and everything was just perfection.  The ambiance, the food, the wine, the company - I realized how much I missed that kind of dining experience.  It was so wonderful to have alone time with Matt, too.  We really should do more date nights:)  Sunday we used a Groupon we've had all summer to go to another nearby municipal "waterpark" called Barefoot Bay which turned out to be pretty fun.  

Saturday Matt and Luke hit up a neighbor's garage sale and came back with $15 of loot!

Children's camping set, Goodnight moon game, megablocks set, and Little Mermaid lounge chair.  Awesomeness.

Claire approves of the chair purchase

Loving the applesauce.  You know she likes it when she grabs the spoon from you.

Picnic lunch before the waterpark opened

Barefoot Bay in Mundelein

Luke has started to really overuse the word "Stop".  He says it all the time.  I think it may be his new favorite word.  He says it whenever you try to get him to do something he doesn't want to do.  Like if you say, "Luke, time to get dressed" he'll just shout "Stop!".  We're trying to teach him the concepts of respect and rudeness, correcting him while still allowing him to express himself. I'm not quite sure if "Please don't do that." is any better than "Stop", but it sounds less disrespectful to my ears even if the intent of the communication is the same.   He also is really wanting privacy lately.  He'll go in his room and then instruct Matt and I that we need to leave so he can be alone.  Just in general he is developing such a little attitude, and not all good.  He is also is acting like a teenager in that we often times can't get him up from his nap.  He wants to keep sleeping so he won't get out of bed, and he'll tell us to turn the light off and shut the door.  One funny story about bedtime is that the other day I had put him down for bedtime, and a little while later he called out that he had to pee.  So I went back in there to help him pee, which he did, but not before taking off his pajama pants plus underwear to be able to climb on the big toilet to pee. He ran back into bed when he was done and I tried to get him to put his jammies back on, but he refused.  Then I said "At least put your underwear on, even if you don't want your jammy bottoms" and then he said, without missing a beat, "No! I want to sleep with my penis out!".  Excuse me???

Claire is exploring new culinary delights with the introduction of pears, sweet potatoes, yogurt and applesauce.  She liked everything, but sweet potatoes the least.  I really do think she had a sweet tooth!  She teased us with a night of sleeping through the night, and it was awesome.  It was gone like the wind, though, the next night.

Here are some other pictures from the week as well as a video of Luke & Kirah having a dance party.

Luke and BFF Kirah playing play doh

Luke and I made blueberry pancakes one morning

I would say that Luke is paying a lot more attention to Claire lately, and vice versa!

His legs look so long in there!

cutie pie

Fort time with Kirah

Kellogg Kids

After a brief hiatus from our regular get togethers, the Kellogg brunches started up again last Saturday.  It was kid galore which meant fun for Mom to see her friends, and fun for Luke to make new friends.  We started the morning at Katherine's house with a delicious brunch, and then almost everyone came over to our house afterward for a continued playdate.  It was all really fun except for when Luke pooped his pants in Katherine's backyard....twice...diarrhea....on her back stoop.  Luckily Katherine & Eliah didn't seem to mind so much once Matt sprayed off the stoop with the hose and then offered to fix their broken sliding door as compensation:)  

On Sunday Mom and Dad came down and we enjoyed a nice boat ride (as nice as a boat ride with two kids, one of which hates her life vest, can be) and a little beach time too.  

In child news, Luke is getting too smart for our liking.  He has started negotiating for things, and is 

such a little adult when he tries.  For example he'll say "How about we clean up this puzzle, and then we have a little bit of juice with dinner?  Is that an option?  I think that is a good idea."  It is so funny.  Or he'll ask me something, I'll say no, and he'll go find Matt and ask him.  Can't believe the playing the parents has already started!  He's definitely getting so funny with what he says in general.  Like he says "Well, hurry up then Mama!" or "I'm asking you a question, Mama.  You need to answer me."  What a little parrot.    

Potty training is still going great.  He can go and pee by himself completely now, pulling up and down his pants by himself, flushing and washing his hands all unassisted.  He actually won't let you help him, he wants his privacy:)  Pooping is still a work in progress, but we're seeing improvement at least!

After a few times of allowing him to pee in the grass or bushes when there weren't bathrooms around, now we have a little problem where he drops his pants in public places to pee on bushes.  Like at the park the other day for example, he was playing next to this family and then just pulled down his pants out of nowhere!  He must have gotten the urge?  Kind of embarrassing!  

Claire gets cuter every day, I swear.  She has started making this sound with her mouth and lips whenever she's hungry or tired, and it is so cute.  I think it sounds like a pigeon.  I attached a video of it here so you can get an idea of the sound.  

She is still not sleeping through the night, up usually two times per night, but I can't really blame her because I think she really is hungry during the night.  I am still trying to exclusively breastfeed her, but even with pumping three times a day at work I'm not keeping up with how much she is eating these days.  I don't have enough milk at night before bed to give her to really fill her up to get her through 8-10 hours of sleep.  We're going to have to start supplementing with formula in a few days here after my freezer supply of milk is depleted.  Once the formula is introduced, we'll be able to stuff her to the gills before bed so there should be no excuses for waking up!  On the subject of food, we gave Claire banana this week and she LOVED it.  Definitely a much bigger hit than the avocado had been.  Maybe she has a sweet tooth like her Ma.  She is 100% sitting up by herself now, which makes it fun for her to play with a lot more of her toys, and she can sit in strollers by herself instead of being in the infant seat.  Finally, she loves peek a boo, just like Luke did, and it is such a treat to watch her squeal with delight when you play the game with her.

Note Luke's not wearing pants, just underwear after the double trouble we experienced.

Rio & Luke swinging together

Taylor and Dominic

Elouise and Corinne

Wagon rides from Bethany.  Taylor was contemplating trying to get in there, too.

Girlfriends:)

Bounce house got a nice workout.  Luke has so much more fun in it when he has other kids to play in it with him.

First time swimming for Elouise

Big little man Dominic

Boating with G&G Mackus

Beaching

Playing frisbee

Eating prunes!  Not as much of a fan as the bananas, but better received than the avocado

Wednesday visits with G&G Baranko.  They were watching him paint a birdhouse, an art project for his new school.

Finished birdhouse!

Put that skirt down little lady!

Bunny ears:)

Crazy hair day at the Baranko house.  Claire got the memo.

First time taking both kids in the bike trailer.  Dry run as a stroller before we hook it on the bike next time.  It went well except for Luke elbowing her all the time.  This girl can take a lot of elbows to the head without seeming upset in the least, let's hope that sticks with a big brother who is very physical!

39 Years - What an example!

My parents and Matt's parents both have August 1974 wedding anniversaries, so they both are celebrating 39 years of marriage this month.   Congratulations to both of you and thank you for being such wonderful examples!  Luke and Claire, take notes, we sure are:)

Sibling love

We were able to celebrate with my parents on their actual anniversary, as we headed up to Wisconsin for the annual family reunion a day early to spend time with them.  We spent the day at the Milwaukee County Zoo, then had a wonderful steak dinner at home.  The zoo was quite the experience.  Luke was being a real handful (read: naughty disobedient toddler), so it was not as exactly as I had imagined our zoo outing in my head.  We started with some really unusual and awful traffic getting into the zoo.  After an hour of sitting in traffic trying to enter the zoo, we finally were in and then it took about another 90 minutes I'd say before we actually saw one animal.  Between multiple trips to the bathroom trying to get Luke to go and him violently resisting yet obviously needing to go, Claire crying because she was hungry, temper tantrums from Luke for various reasons, Claire pooping her pants, Luke pooping his pants, Claire throwing up, Luke trying to climb into the enclosures and getting time out, then all of us needing to eat lunch - we had a bit of a false start for the actual zoo activities.   Thank goodness Mom and Dad were good-natured and easy-going about all of it, because it felt a little stressful there for a while.  Matt and I are just hopeful that this is not a preview of our trip to Disney World in a few weeks!!!

This is Matt and I after a couple hours of the zoo:


The family reunion was nice.  It is in Mazomanie, WI, which is about 3 hours away from our house, which is why it was nice to break up the drive there at least by getting half way there the day before.  The reunion is for my grandmother's side of the family, since she was 1 of 16 siblings.  With so many siblings, my Dad has a ton of cousins, and we have a ton of second and third cousins.  This is a picture of my Dad and his first cousins - just the ones that happened to make it to the reunion this year - there's even more!




Here are a few updates from the week:

- Luke has learned how to throw a Frisbee, and he's really pretty good!  He can throw it really far, I am quite impressed.  Catching it is not as developed of a skill, yet.  He instructs me on how to catch his throws though, "Momma, put one hand out and one hand by your side and catch the Frisbee."  Yes, sir.
- It was the annual "Lake Forest Day" in our town, which meant a mid-week carnival for Luke.  He is old enough to ride a lot of the rides now, and he had an amazing time.  We went on Tuesday night and it ended up absolutely pouring so we spent a bunch of time huddled underneath one umbrella (all 4 of us) trying to wait it out so we could use up our tickets we bought.  He ended up going on a few rides, grinning from ear to ear with happiness, and when we were driving home he declared "That was fun!" without us inquiring.
- Potty traning is still sticking.  Pooping and night time are still the development areas (as we say at work about things that aren't going as we'd like).  On the 75 minute trip up to Mom and Dad's house, which was really Luke's first real car trip not in a diaper, we stopped for Luke to go three separate times.  The first time he claimed he had to poop, so we stopped at a gas station.  Matt got him out, got him in the bathroom, got the little disposable cover thing out for the public toilet seat, got Luke situated on it - you know where this is going - and Luke strains to go a little and then announces "Nothing!".  What?!  So the second and third time he said he had to go, we literally stopped on an off ramp and he peed into the grass on the side of the road.  Is that wrong of us?  Matt was speculating on if this approach would work for Claire, too, when the time comes.  


Pictures from all the activities:

Lake Forest Day - flying the helicopter ride

Going into work early one morning I saw this lovely sunrise 

Taking a rest on the bench.  This is a favorite pose for him, with his arms behind his head.  He lays like this on his bed, too.

Puppy dog loves to sleep on top of stuff - here he found a comfy spot on my throw pillows.

You can't really tell - but she has crazy hair here after her bath.

Donna, Emil, Matt, Isolene, Luke & Claire all went to the Lake Forest Day parade on Wednesday.  They also hit the carnival again now that it wasn't raining.

Watching the parade

Gram going on the Dizzy Dinosaur ride with Luke.

These smiles are priceless.  

Making homemade play dough with Isolene

Climbing the tree at the zoo ticket booth area.

Stingray petting exhibit

The bears were Luke's favorite part of the zoo, he told us.

My favorite part of the zoo was when Mom would handle Luke and we could have a rest.  

It's a good thing Claire is sooooo easy.  Once we fed and changed her at the beginning she didn't make a peep the rest of the day.  

Popcorn hog

Happy Anniversary!!  Lovely night to eat outside.

Claire is amused by Dougal and Dudley and tries to pet them

Reunion time!  

Grandma and her remaining siblings

This is my generation of cousins

Mackus family picture

Jason and Ian keeping it cool

Claire trying to pull Grandma's earring.

She's getting so interactive with all her toys now, especially now that she can sit up to play with them.

sweetie pie